Bolivia's indigenous people are rising up and reclaiming a new homeland.
An exciting national revolution is unfolding in Bolivia today, with its indigenous peoples at its core. The movement to refound Bolivia is an inspiration to many around the world. Bolivia Rising aims to bring news and analysis about this revolution to english speakers.

Bolivia Rising: Revolution in the heart of South America

[Bolivia Rising is posting the English translation of the introduction by Federico Fuentes to MAS-IPSP de Bolivia: Instrumento político que surge de los movimientos socialesin order to providing its readers with a historic context for the rise of the Morales governments. Understanding Bolivia's history is crucial to understanding the process of change underway in this country today, something that seems self-evident but is too often forgotten. The entire book can be downloaded in Spanish by clicking the link down the left hand side of the page]

Today
we are witnessing the realisation of Túpac Katari’s prophecy: ‘I will come
back, and I will return as millions’; we are millions, in all parts,
representing Túpac Katari, Bartolina Sisa, Simón Bolívar, Antonio José de
Sucre. Evo Morales represents this historic current and brings together 500
years of struggle by the people of Bolivia, of Latin America and the Caribbean.
President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez[1]

[The
vote for MAS in the December 2005 national elections] is a mandate from the
nation, not a class mandate, nor that of a region or an ethnic group; it is the
nation that has stood up. It is a mandate which can only be compared to that of
revolutions, like the National Revolution [of 1952]. Only during those stages
were similar results achieved.
Vice president of Bolivia, Alvaro Garcia Linera [2]

Introduction

A
new project of national liberation

In December 2005, following five
hundred years of domination and colonialism, more than fifty years since the
National Revolution, and after five years of intense social struggle, the
indigenous majority of Bolivia, for the first time elected one of their own as
president — the cocalero
(coca-grower) leader and head of the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS),
Evo Morales. The victory —with more than 50 percent of the vote — was more than
just an indication of the level of rejection towards twenty years of neoliberal
rule.

Peruvian activist Hugo Blanco
summed up the significance of this event when he wrote, “the new president is
not the result of a simple ‘democratic election’ like the many that frequently
occur in our countries, it is an important step by the organized Bolivian
people on their path towards taking power into their own hands.”[3]

Morales’s election marked the
emergence of an alternative national project for South America’s poorest
country. It represented a new stage in the cycle of revolutionary struggle in
Bolivia that opened up in 2000 with the Cochabamba “water war” against
privatisation, the Aymara rebellion in the altiplano
highland regions and the cocalero resistance in the Chapare region.
Since those battles, two presidents have been forced to resign — in October
2003 and June 2005 — as continuous waves of protest laid siege to the country’s
political system.

At the core of this revolution are
two fundamental issues: the destiny of Bolivia’s gas reserves, the second
largest in South America; and the abolition of the racist colonialist state and
refoundation of Bolivia through a new constituent assembly.

Over 50% of the population voted on
December 18 to put an indigenous person in the presidential palace. Morales
received more than 90% of the vote in the Chapare region, around 80% in El Alto
and the altiplano, a surprising 30 percent in Santa Cruz, and a clean sweep of
all the middle-class seats in La Paz.

After five years of intense social
struggle, the vote marked the coming together of Bolivia’s oppressed classes,
heralding the possibility of a path out of the historic crisis of the Bolivian
state; a crisis resulting from the impacts of internal colonization,
imperialist domination and neoliberalism.

The vote was an unambiguous
expression of the desires and hopes of the indigenous majority for a government
that could lead the country toward a new, inclusive Bolivia. For the middle
classes, the Morales government offered the opportunity of a return to
stability.

The Morales victory was the result
of a conscious effort by Bolivia’s indigenous campesino movement to forge its
own political instrument: the Political Instrument for the Sovereignty of the
People (IPSP), today more commonly known as Movement Towards Socialism, or MAS-IPSP.
Through a combination of street fighting and parliamentary battles, a policy of
consistent alliance building and accumulation of social forces, and by focusing
on the key national demands of the people — gas nationalisation and constituent
assembly — Morales and the MAS-IPSP leadership have been able to construct a
powerful national movement of liberation in the heart of a continent in revolt.

All of this has occurred within the
framework of the rise of the new Latin American left, within which Morales’
victory signified more than just the election of another progressive or left
president. It represented a qualitative new stage for the resurgent indigenous
movement of the Americas, which is both a part of, and at the same time
autonomous from, this new continental rebellion.

The
long memory of indigenous resistance
against colonialism

Colonialism
and indigenous resistance

A day before officially assuming
the presidency, Evo Morales travelled to Tiwanaku, the ancient centre of the
Aymara empire and a sacred indigenous site, where he was handed over the
symbolic bastion as a symbol of his new status as maximum authority amongst the
Andean indigenous people, and proclaimed “president of the indigenous peoples
of America”.

“From Tiwanaku begins a new era for
the peoples of the world, only with the force of the people can we get rid of
this colonial state,” announced Morales.

“I ask that the indigenous people
make sure to control me, and if I can no long continue to move forward, then
push me…. We have witnessed the triumph of a democratic and cultural
revolution…We have passed from resistance to the taking of power” he stated,
exhorting the thousands of mallkus (indigenous
authorities) present to “continue the struggles of Tupac Katari”.[4]

Morales’s inauguration ceremony was
full of symbolism: it resurrected images, engrained in popular psyche, of
anti-colonial rebellions, particularly the Aymara uprising led by Tupac Katari
in 1781.

In 1780, the altiplano
region was in a state of convulsion, with indigenous opposition to the Spanish
invaders mounting. A regional insurgency in Potosí under the leadership of
Tomás Katari had unleashed a chain of local movements. The southern highlands
of Oruro and La Paz followed in early 1781, as Aymara and Quechua troops
cleared the countryside of Spanish colonial control.[5]

On March 13, 1781, Tupac Katari,
along with the Aymara army he commanded, took control of El Alto, a strategic
entry point for La Paz. For several months, the Aymaras, together with the help
of some Quechua soldiers, encircled the city, fighting back against the
invaders. The invading Spanish army was only able to
fight off the rebellion by calling upon the support of the local criollo
population.

Katari
was overpowered, captured, and quartered, but he became a historic reference
point for indigenous struggle, promising just before he was executed: “I will
come back, and I will be millions.” This quote became part of popular
consciousness; part of the long memory
of indigenous anti-colonial resistance.

Bolivia’s history provides us with
one of the most stunning examples of the devastating impact that colonialism
had around the world, and its continued ramifications today. Such is the case
of Potosi, home of what use to be some of the largest silver mines in the
world. In the 17th century, Potosi had a population of 160,000, making
it larger than London at the time, while New York was not even a city yet.

But this wealth was never used to
develop what became Bolivia, nor to improve the lives of indigenous people. By
1802, the industry was in sharp decline and the wealth from Potosi had been
almost completely used up building London into a centre of world trade and
capital flows.

Today, this mining city – a
monument to the legacy of colonialism - is a shell of its former self, where
cooperative miners work in slave like conditions for an estimated 10 years
before dying due to the terrible working conditions. This pillaging was an
example of what Ernest Mandel called the “double tragedy of the developing
countries …. [in] that they were not only victims of that process of
international concentration, but that subsequently they have had to try and
compensate for their industrial backwardness — that is, realize the primitive
accumulation of industrial capital — in a world flooded with articles
manufactured by an already mature industry, that of the West.”[6]

Today, Bolivia is the poorest
country in South America and second after Haiti in the entire continent of the
Americas. With a population of over 9 million, the indigenous people represent
a majority: there are 2.5 million Quechuas, 1.5 million Aymaras and 1 million
more belong to one of the other 34 indigenous nations.

Formation of Bolivia
(1825)

By the end of the 18th
century, the growing criollo[7]
and mestizo[8]
population of Latin America had become increasing discontent with what was
occurring back in their homeland. The defeat of the Spanish bourgeois revolution led many to look towards
independence from the former colonial power as a way forward.

During this period, wars of independence were waged
across the continent, as Simon Bolivar[9], José de San
Martin[10], José Artigas[11] and Bernardo
O’Higgins[12]
fought to liberate the continent from Spanish rule.

While Bolivia proclaimed its independence from Spain
in 1809, it took a further 15 years of civil war before it formally became a
republic. The fight for independence culminated with the battle of Ayacucho, on
December 9, 1824, when Antonio José de Sucre's Republican army forced the
surrender of the Spanish forces.

Due to the impact of the crushing of previous
indigenous rebellions and the devastating violence inflicted on the indigenous
population, their involvement was minimal given they had very little reason to
support the cause.

The way in which Bolivia came into being was to leave
a profound impact on its society. In contrast to European countries, where
local national bourgeoisies acted as cohering forces in the processes of
constructing nation-states, Andres Soliz Rada argues that no such force existed
in Bolivia at the time. The oligarchy based on the tin mines of Potosi had gone
into sharp decline and the fifteen year long war of independence almost
completely destroyed all economic classes.[13]

While two other important economic centres – Buenos
Aires and Lima - could have acted to incorporate Bolivia’s territory under their
control, certain factors impeded this.

On the one hand, the emerging bourgeoisie based around
the port of Buenos Aires was more interested in getting rich quick rather than
using its wealth to build up the local economy. When San Martin offered to
fight to expand Argentina and incorporate the territory that would become
Bolivia under its control, Buenos Aires refused to help.

On the other hand, the aristocratic and pro-Spanish
nature of the monopolist merchant class in Lima, which had benefited from
colonial exploitation and maintained strong ties to the Church, meant that
during the wars of independence it acted in the interests of Spain. In fact
much of the repressive army used against the independence fighters in Bolivia
was provided by Lima.

Soliz Rada writes: “In this way, between 1821 and
1825, Alto Peru appeared to be a floating territorial mass, without an economic
agglutinative axis within its border, pushed towards separatism by the porteno oligarchy of Buenos Aires and
without possibility of reunification with Bajo Peru, given the oligarchic, aristocratic,
ecclesiastic and pro-Spanish power that the local elites had been impregnated
with.

“The lack of a dominant economic axis during the birth
of Bolivia constituted one of its characteristics throughout republican life.
It had a decisive influenced over its peripheral zones, which were to gravitate
in function of the economies of neighbouring countries, in the end facilitating
the constant territorial dismemberments suffered by [Bolivia] on
practically all its borders.”[14]

Between 1879 and 1883, Bolivia was
at war with Chile, losing its access to the Pacific Ocean, something that to
this day has negative ramifications on Bolivia’s economy. The Acre War
(1899-1903) against Brazil saw the loss of important forest lands in the
north-east of Bolivia that helped fuel Brazil’s development.

The
Federal War of 1899

This lack of a dominant economic
axis also had an impact internally. While Sucre, located close to Potosi, was
designated the capital of Bolivia, the growing prominence of the oligarchy that
had emerged out of the booming tin mines around La Paz, lead to a civil war for
political power in Bolivia: the Federal War of 1899. The result was a transfer
of political power from the Conservatives (declining silver oligarchy in
Potosi-Sucre) to the Liberals, (the expanding tin mining industry and those
industries reliant on it in the north) and the shifting of the capital to La
Paz, the new economic axis of the country. This explains why Sucre remains the
official capital today, whilst the legislative and executive powers are located
in La Paz.

Unlike the War of Independence,
indigenous people not only participated but played a critical role in the
Federal War. The Aymara Army led by Pablo Zarate Willka comprised some 40,000
indigenous peoples. While supporting the Liberals, it acted as an autonomous
force organised around the demands of recovery of indigenous land and the
formation of an indigenous government.

The Liberal victory over the
Conservatives was only possible due to the intervention of the indigenous
masses. Yet fears of an emergent indigenous power led the Liberals to join up
with the Conservatives and turn their guns on the indigenous peoples the very
same day that they won the war. Despite the political transition that occurred,
the exploitation of indigenous people remained unchanged.

Fragmented resistance
in the first half of the 20th century

Over the following decades, indigenous resistance took
the form of a fragmented, predominately Aymara, movement that oscillated between
negotiating with the state and open rebellion, primarily in defence of
communitarian lands and access to education. Numerous regional uprisings occurred
in the first half of the twentieth century in Pacajes (1914), Caquiaviri
(1918), Jesús de Machaca (1921), Chayanta (1927), Pucarani (1934), Los Andes
and Ayopaya (1947).[15]

Oppression of
Indigenous peoples

With the eyes of the ruling elites
directed towards Europe, the new republic represented a continuation of the
brutal exploitation and exclusion of indigenous peoples.

The new constitution of 1826 denied
indigenous people all political and economic rights. In return, indigenous
people gained the “privilege” of being the biggest contributors to the
construction of this new state, through the payment of a tribute which
accounted for 50% of the state’s revenues.

Officially, it was not until 1945 -
and in real terms not until 1952 - that the practise of pongueaje, which
required indigenous peoples to render free services to their landlords, was
outlawed.

In September 1868, a national
constituent assembly decreed all land owned by indigenous communities was to be
handed over to the state. These stolen lands were subsequently transferred over
to the large landowners. By 1950, 6% of haciendas
controlled 92% of Bolivia’s fertile land.[16]

Excluded from political
participation, indigenous people were also denied access to education as a
means of perpetuating their subordination and exclusion. Twenty five years
after the founding of Bolivia, less than 20% of indigenous people could speak
the official language.[17]
They were tried in courts where they could not understand the charges they were
facing.

Commenting on the situation of
indigenous people, Emilio Barbier wrote at the end of 19th century:
“More fortunate are the donkeys, horse and llamas: at least they are looked
after because of the capital they represent”.[18]

Revolutionary
potential of indigenous struggle

On the basis of the oppression of
the indigenous people who were trapped within a semi-feudal economic structure,
the native oligarchy attempted to erect the false image of a liberal-bourgeois
state into which the criollo and mestizo were incorporated.

This history of abuse,
discrimination and exploitation helps explain the dynamic and revolutionary
potential of indigenous struggle in Bolivia. It is an overdeterminated phenomenon in that
it is not solely a product of racial discrimination as some indigenista state,
nor is it simply a product of class exploitation as some Marxists claim.

The intermediary memory of national
revolutionary movements

Growing crisis of the
oligarchic regime and the Chaco War (1932-36)

Under the rule of the tin barons, there
began to emerge an important layer of criollo and mestizo middle class
professionals. Drawn from the same social milieu, the same schools and grouped
into the same social clubs, this emerging class ran the state bureaucracy on
behalf of the oligarchy.

However, as in many countries
across the world, the Great Depression impacted heavily on this new middle
class. Bolivia was rattled by economic collapse as “small companies went to the
wall, the middle class lost much of its earning power and savings, and the
working class was badly hit by the loss of jobs and a sharp fall in real wages”[19].
Alongside the economic crisis, the first cracks began to appear between the
oligarchs and middle classes.

In 1932, Bolivia was plunged into a
fratricidal war with Paraguay over control of oil and gas reserves in the Chaco
region. Behind the war were the interests of the Standard Oil Company and
Shell, each supporting Bolivia and Paraguay, respectively.

Although Bolivia did not lose
control over territory or gas reserves to Paraguay like in previous border
wars, it suffered an enormous loss of lives: out of the 250,000 people sent to
the frontline, 50,000 died and 20,000 were captured. The war generated a
growing sentiment of defeat and discontent through Bolivian society.

The trenches – where those from the
middle class, miners, and indigenous campesinos (many conscripted against their
will) living through shared experiences - became the site of intense political
discussions. Disgusted by what they had experienced, the middle classes blamed
the rosca (mining-based
oligarchy) for the military and political failure of the government and
the dire situation that the country faced.

This national scenario provided
fertile ground for the flourishing of a vibrant nationalism that began to
heavily question the state and nature of Bolivian society.

Military socialism
(1936-39)

Bolivian nationalism first took
form in the figure of Colonel David Toro, who came to power on the back of the 1936
military coup. Coming out of the war with a profound sense of frustration, a
large section of middle and lower ranking soldiers organised themselves into
associations. Toro emerged as a representative of this increasing discontent that
sought a solution to the situation via “the intervention of the army in defence
of the interests and rights of the working classes and the ex-combatants…”[20]

Toro’s rise to power initiated a
short-lived period in Bolivian history referred to as socialismo militar (“military socialism”). The Toro
government moved quickly to nationalise Standard Oil due to their role in the
Chaco War. Toro also created the first Ministry of Labour and, inspired by what
he saw under Mussolini’s Italy, implemented the forced unionisation of workers.
These policies were continued under Lieutenant Colonel German Busch, who
overthrew Toro in 1937.

The political project of military
socialism was far from complete and quite erratic at times, simultaneously
implementing progressive and regressive measures. These governments represented
an attempt to balance between foreign imperialism and rising nationalism. This
experiment ended in 1939 when, as a graphic symbol of the immense pressure
faced by these types of regimes, Busch committed suicide by shooting himself in
the head.

While the diffuse military
socialism of the Toro and Busch regimes had filled the space available for
nationalist politics, thereby inhibiting the organisation of more coherent
revolutionary nationalist current, the coming to power of Enrique Peñaranda in
1940 did the opposite.

The combination of skyrocketing tin
prices and the outbreak of the Second World War - which landed Bolivia in the
privileged position of being the sole tin provider to the allied forces -
created a big contradiction for the Peñaranda government. Peñaranda could have used
this position to build up Bolivia’s economy, yet due to his subordination to
the US government he signed an agreement whereby Bolivia sold tin at 25 pound
sterling - well below the world market price of 90 pound sterling – as its
contribution to the inter-imperialist war.

As a result, Bolivia not only lost
an estimated $600 million in revenue from tin sales during the war but also the
potential to build up its industry. Moreover, the US used the increased tin
imports to create its own stockpile which it used against Bolivia in subsequent
years.

US Assistant Secretary of State for
Economic Affairs, Willard Thorp, commenting on the stockpile of Bolivian tin
they had bought up, said: “By building the Texas City smelter and buying
Bolivian tin for many years, we have discouraged the Bolivians or any other
country from constructing a tin smelter to use the Bolivian concentrates. By
preventing private purchase in the United States and remaining out of the
market for so long, we have prevented competition from determining the price of
tin. We have, in effect, used our stockpile to force the price down, since in
the absence of the stockpile we could never have held out as long as we did.”[21]

The story of Potosi’s silver mines
was repeated again and again, as successive ruling elites sold off the
country’s natural resources to aid the economic expansion and development of
foreign powers.

Nationalism, Stalinism
and Trotskyism

Before, and especially during, the
Peñaranda government, a number of organised left and nationalist political
tendencies began to appear.

PIR and Stalinism

The first party to emerge with some
force was the Party of the Revolutionary Left (PIR), a party which drew
together much of the disparate left groups that had begun to appear on university
campuses during the 1930s. It went on to also develop a base in the unions.
Although not officially tied to Moscow and the Soviet-led Communist International,
the PIR was heavily influenced by Stalinist ideology.

POR and Trotskyism

Another important political force
to emerge at the time was the Revolutionary Workers Party (POR). Although its membership
was generally confined to more middle class sectors, the POR obtained authority
and fame due to the important influence it held within the miners federation,
the Union Federation of Mine Workers of Bolivia (FSTMB). POR members helped
draft the famous Tesis de Pulacayo
for the 1946 FSTMB congress. The thesis, which went on to heavily influence the
politics of miner unionism, or miner
marxism, represented the importation into Bolivia of the kind of programs proposed
by European Trotskyist parties, without any consideration for local realities.

This political current proclaimed that
campesinos would play a subordinate role to the working class in the coming
Bolivian socialist revolution, while the indigenous question did not even rate
a mention. The POR’s misunderstanding of the dynamic of revolutionary struggle
in semi-colonial countries led it to take a strongly workerist stance. For the
POR, the axis of struggle was not against imperialism but rather between the
local bourgeoisie and proletariat.

This meant that the POR, while
influencing sections of the working class, left the door open for emerging nationalist
forces like the Nationalist Revolutionary Movement (MNR) to gain hegemony both
within the national and workers movement.

MNR and Nationalism

The MNR became the political
expression of nationalist ideology that grew to be part of popular culture. The
works of writers such as Augusto Cespedes[22]
and Carlos Montenegro[23],
amongst others, helped popularise the idea of a battle between the nation and
the anti-nation - or put differently,
a struggle between the oppressed nation and imperialism – and raised national
consciousness. This was particularly reflected amongst middle class and petty
bourgeois sectors (including the military) who saw in themselves the salvation
of Bolivia, and became the leadership of the MNR.

The MNR contained within it both a
right and left wing, which differed over whether it was possible to confront
imperialism or not. However, the petty bourgeois leadership of the MNR, with
its aspiration to promote the development of an almost non-existent national
bourgeois, lacked any understanding of the class conflict inherent within the
anti-imperialist front. Moreover, the MNR did not understand the indigenous question:
for the MNR, indigenous people were simply part of the campesino population
within a mestizo Bolivian nation.

The Nationalist Villarroel
government (1943-46)

In 1943, General Gualberto
Villarroel, together with sections of the military organised into Homeland’s
Cause (RADEPA), and in alliance with the MNR, overthrew the anti-national
government of Peñaranda via a military coup. This time around the new government
had a much more solidly nationalist political platform than that of either Toro
or Busch. Villarroel gained an important support base amongst workers and
peasants, declared himself a friend of the poor, helped establish the miner’s
federation and increased pressures on companies to pay taxes and raise wages.

Villarroel took a progressive stand
in regards to indigenous people. He formally abolished pongueaje, declared August 2 as Day of the Indian, and convoked the
Indigenous Congress in 1945, which was held in the actual national Congress building.
The Indigenous Congress was particularly significant as indigenous people had
previously not even been allowed into the plaza out the front of Congress, but
now had the opportunity to debate policies inside, something that was too much
to swallow for the racist oligarchy who organised to bring Villarroel down.

The PIR’s Stalinist line of forming
a popular front against fascism led it to unite with the tin oligarchy and
reactionary middle classes forces to overthrow Villarroel. Meanwhile, misunderstanding
the dynamics of the actual class battle underway, the POR opted for an abstract
“classist” policy, and preferred to criticise Villaroel from the “left” rather
than take a united front approach to defend his government.

In the end, Villaroel was publicly
hung by racist hordes in the Plaza outside Congress. Both the PIR and POR paid
the political price for their mistaken policies, whilst the MNR rose to
prominence over the next period.

Expanding its political work beyond
the military, the MNR consolidated its leadership in the trade union movement, while
continuing to recruit amongst rank and file soldiers and from RADEPA.

The
National Revolution (1952-64)

Within a few years, the MNR became
the main political force in Bolivia, winning the 1951 elections with Víctor Paz
Estenssoro as their presidential candidate. Nevertheless, power was usurped by a
military junta that impeded the MNR from forming government.

In response, workers and campesinos
led a national armed insurrection in April the following year and brought the
MNR to power. The 1952 revolution was a profound uprising of the oppressed
classes that, under the petty bourgeois leadership of the MNR, broke the
political grip that large landowners and tin oligarchs maintained over the
country.

The almost complete disintegration
of the military meant that armed power lay with the workers’ and campesinos’
militias. On April 11, 1952, Hernán Siles Zuazo, together with Juan Lechín
Oquendo, leader of the miners union, formed a provisional interim government,
until Víctor Paz Estenssoro returned from exile in Argentina on four days
later.

In essence, the National Revolution
represented the fracturing of the economic and political structures that had
maintained the rosca in power, and promoted the awakening and inclusion of indigenous
people.

Progressive measures
implemented

The MNR government immediately began
to implement a number of popular measures and organise the people.

1) On October 31, the government
nationalised the mines, bringing them under the control of the new state
company, COMIBOL (Corporacion Minera Boliviano).

2) The government decreed the
dissolution of the army, replacing it with campesino and miners militias.

3) The government decreed universal
suffrage, thereby incorporating indigenous people into political life.

4) It also initiated an agrarian
reform program, created the Ministry of Campesino Affairs and promoted the
organization of campesino unions.

Within the same month of coming to
power, the MNR regime contributed to the creation of the Bolivian Workers
Central (COB). Unionisation levels exploded with the number of unionised
workers reaching 150,000 by 1956. The government
also incorporated a number of union leaders into its cabinet.

Washington opts for
strategy of penetration

Washington became increasingly
concerned by the nationalist direction of the revolution, within which the left
wing had substantial influence.

The lack of support for a fractured
oligarchy with little political power, the almost complete dismantling of the
armed forces and the popularity of the MNR meant that the US government had few
options available for overthrowing the government. Therefore, rather than
relying on military intervention or the weak oligarchic opposition, the US
carried out a strategy of ideological penetration into the revolution, playing
on existing divisions with the MNR, in order to regain its domination over the
economy and disarm the militias.[24]

The revolution begins
to retreat

Faced with this situation, Soliz
Rada explained that “the petty bourgeoisie, capable of leading the struggle
against the rosca, demonstrated its cowardice in confronting imperialism”.[25]
For Sergio Almaraz, “The Bolivian revolution was belittled, and with its men,
its projects, its dreams.”[26]

Unwilling to go all the way in
confronting imperialism, and afraid of the growing strength of the workers and
campesinos, the MNR began to change its position.

Imperialist influence
increases

The US carried out a policy of
deepening economic dependency via increased aid funding. Between 1954 and 1964,
Bolivia was the biggest per capita recipient of US foreign aid in the world, a
sum that ended up accounting for one third of its national budget. Via this
means the country was plunged into a debt, weakened its economic position when
it came to negotiating with imperialism.

While US influence increased, the
revolution became further isolated from potential allies.

Shortly after assuming government,
the MNR distanced itself from the nationalist government of General Juan Peron
in Argentina (1945-55).[27]

When the Soviet Union offered to
provide Bolivia with a smelter in order to industrialise tin (the US was the
only country able to process Bolivian tin at the time), the US threatened to
withdraw its aid. The MNR government caved and rejected the offer. The right
wing of the MNR opposed any ties with the Soviet Union – a key demand of
imperialism – and gradually the MNR began to replace its anti-oligarchic
discourse with talk of the dangers of “communist agitators” in the countryside.

In 1955 the government approved the
Petroleum Code – written by US officials - which allowed Gulf Oil to control
90% of Bolivia’s gas.

This penetration was deepened the
following year with the approval of the Eder Plan[28],
backed by the US and the IMF.

By making support for the Eder Plan
a condition for entering the government, the right was able to weaken union
influence within the government. The COB broke its alliance with the
government, which in turn created a new union federation directly under its
control, the United Revolutionary Bolivian Workers Central (COBUR).

This split in the mass base of the
MNR regime made the leadership even more dependent on US financial and
political support.

Reconstruction of the
institutional military apparatus

Alongside increasing its economic
control and attempting to stoke divisions with the MNR, the US also set about
resuscitating the Armed Forces as a counterweight to the worker and campesino
militias. This was done in collaboration with a wing of the MNR that had come
out of the military and, maintaining its belief in the necessity of a standing
army, had begun working on re-establishing the Armed Forces.

This military sector succeeded in gaining
control of the state apparatus and the MNR. By reshaping the ideology of the
National Revolution through an emphasis on the central role of the Armed Forces
in defending the homeland, together with implementing paternalist programs
carried out by the military itself, the government began to win support for
rebuilding the armed forces.[29]

In 1954, the military school was
reopened in order to help re-establish a standing army. Almost immediately, the
US began to gain important influence in key sections of the armed forces. Shortly
after, the MNR government began sending elite army units to the US Army's
School of the Americas for counterinsurgency training.[30]

Feeling confident that they could
regain power, the oligarchy proposed right wing MNR leader Walter Guevara as
candidate for president in the 1960 elections. Guevara had been closely aligned
with the US during his time as foreign minister. While the slate led by Victor
Paz Estensoro won the elections, the divisions within the MNR only increased in
the government’s third term.

Paz Estensoro implemented the
Triangular Plan in 1961 which was aimed at restructuring COMIBOL by turning it
into a centre of capital accumulation for the new emerging bourgeois while
closing off possibilities for industrialisation. Meanwhile, government
propaganda against “communist agitators” increased.

The rise and decline
of campesino unionism

From campesino
unionism to the Military Campesino Pact

Another key factor that determined the future of the 1952
National Revolution was the role of campesinos and their relationship to the
state after the revolution.

The period preceding the coming to power of the MNR witnessed
important indigenous struggles and the formation of the first campesinos
unions, primarily in the altiplano. With the National Revolution, these
organisations expanded dramatically, as indigenous people began to be
incorporated into national politics.

The relationship between the state
and the campesino unions was characterized by the rise of new alliances and
conflicts, where the unions had a level of autonomy that allowed them to
negotiate with the government.[31]

Jean-Pierre Lavaud outlined the
rapid growth of campesino organization under the MNR, writing: “Beginning in
the second semester of 1952, the departmental federations of Cochabamba and La
Paz were established and the national confederation was created on July 15,
1953. The campesino sectors that had rapidly and autonomously organised
themselves after the revolution, principally in the valle (valley) of Cochabamba, were rapidly incorporated into this
immense machine that by 1954 encompassed 7,000 local unions. At the same time,
MNR commands began to appear (although small in numbers in the countryside) and
armed campesino militias, principally in two regions: the north of the
altiplano and the valle of Cochabamba. In 1956, the militias counted on 30,000
to 50,000 campesinos”.[32]

The stronghold of campesino
unionism was in the Cochabamba valley, where the unions, which had first
emerged in 1939, became the nucleus of political organization in the community.
“The militia quarters in the valle were converted into decision making centre
for the daily problems of campesino society, over and above the judicial
authority, whose rulings were difficult to apply without the consent of the
union”.[33]

The campesino unions were, however,
not immune from the internal conflicts between the left and right wing of the
MNR.

It was in Cochabamba that this
conflict was most intense. The campesinos here were divided into two regional
leaderships: the Campesino Central of Ucureña, lead by José Rojas, from the POR
who advocated the expropriation of land without compensation, and the Union
Federation of Campesino Workers of Cochabamba in Cliza, lead by Siforoso Rivas,
who represented the right wing MNR position of a partial agrarian reform with
compensation.

Pablo Stefanoni explains that the
“intra-campesino conflicts intensified during the third term of the MNR
government (1960-1964) when the disputes within the nationalist camp took on a
violent character: the so-called ‘Champa War’ between the Centrals of Cliza and
Ucureña (in the Valle Alto) which lasted for four years, was one of the main
expressions of conflicts between campesino factions that were linked to
internal struggles within the MNR.”[34]

General Barrientos and
the Military-Campesino Pact

In 1963, General René Barrientos, in
representation of the armed forces, was able to achieve the pacification of the
conflict between the Centrals in Cliza and Ucureña, thereby gaining massive
support amongst the campesino unions. Together with the increasingly
paternalistic social programs of the armed forces in the countryside, the
promotion of a discourse centred on the importance of the military and the
struggle against the new enemy, “communist agitators”, Barrientos and the armed
forces were able to create a new image of this institution as the guarantors of
peace and the revolution.

Using this increased prestige,
Barrientos announced the signing of the Military Campesino Pact (MCP) between
the military cells of the MNR and campesino unions, in front of 30,000
campesinos in Ucureña on April 9, 1964. With the COB isolated, Barrientos was
able to use his status to subordinate the campesino unions to the armed forces
and rapidly disarm the campesino militias.

The Barrientos military
coup (1964)

With this important support base,
General Barrientos launched a successful military coup in November 1964. The
coup – a result of the inevitable collision between growing imperialist
penetration of the national revolution on the one hand and the progressive
policies and social forces unleashed by the revolution on the other - marked
the beginning of the end of the National Revolution.

Barrientos went on to carry out a
systematic campaign of direct intervention into the campesino union federation
in order to gain control of them at the national and regional level. By doing
so, the campesino unions became transformed into para-state institutions, used
in many cases to attack miners on strike. This relationship between the government
and campesino unions helps in part to explain the isolation faced by Ernesto
Che Guevara’s 1967 guerrilla expedition to the Bolivian countryside, which
occurred at the height of the MCP.

However, an attempt by Barrientos
to impose the Single Tax in 1968, which would have shifted the economic burden
of the growing debt onto the poor, was just too much for some of the
campesinos, who formed the Independent Campesino Bloc (BIC). This was the first
crack in the pact and, although only representing a small fraction of the
campesino sector, was a sign of things to come.

Ovando-Torres regimes
(1969-71)

Following the sudden death of
Barrientos, on April 29, 1969, Dr Luis Adolfo Siles Salinas became president.
Lacking any social base and rejected by the campesino unions, he was deposed by
General Alfredo Ovando Candia in a military coup in September of that year.

The new government immediately
signalled a new direction for Bolivia, stating in the Revolutionary Mandate of the Armed Forces of the Nation: “The Armed
Forces, via an institutional decision, has decided to put itself at the service
of the Revolution, committing itself to the struggle for social justice, for
the greatness of the homeland, and for authentic national independence, today
in danger due to foreign subjugation”.[35]
The threat of “communist agitators” began to recede in public discourse and was
replaced with the real danger of imperialism.

Reflecting the strong subordination
of the campesino movement to the military, the campesino alliance with the
military continued in spite of this sudden shift in direction. Cesar Soto
writes: “the change in discourse and the decisive anti-imperialist shift
contrasted sharply with Barrientos’ discourse and yet the campesinos ascribed
to it, to the point that it would not be an exaggeration to affirm that
campesinos spoke what the state spoke… It was a blind support, that did not
flow from any rupturing of its ‘dependent’ consciousness, and was a reflect
action of support for the state”.[36]

Ovando had a contradictory history:
as one of the leaders of the MNR military cell he had participated in the
conspiracy to reorganise the Armed Forces. His government was marked by a
battle between the left nationalist tendency in the military – lead by General
Juan Jose Torres who was promoted to chief commander of the Armed Forces by
Ovando – and the right wing barrientistas.

In order to gain popular support,
the Ovando government abrogated the Petroleum Code, a number of anti-union laws
and the Law of State Security. Together with his minister for hydrocarbons,
Marcelo Quiroga Santa Cruz, a well known socialist intellectual, Ovando carried
out the expropriation of Gulf Oil, Bolivia’s second gas nationalisation. Ovando
also accepted the previous Soviet Union offer to provide Bolivia with a tin
smelter.

In response, the right wing began
to counterattack. Mounting pressure from the barrientistas forced Quiroga’s resignation on May 18, 1970. Then,
on July 9, Torres was pushed out of his role in the military when the position
of chief commander was abolished. Sensing their growing strength, the
barrientistas attempted a coup in October of that year.

However, a general strike convoked
by the Political Command of the COB (set up as a coalition of different union
leaderships and leftist parties), alongside a military rebellion headed by
Torres defeated the attempted coup against Ovando, and installed Torres in
power.

The Torres government
and the Popular Assembly

Torres’ assumption of power marked
a further shift leftwards. He carried out measures that signified profound
economic and social changes such as the nationalisation of the Matilde mine and
the repositioning of wages for miners that had been dramatically slashed under
Barrientos. The Torres government also expelled the US Peace Corps from
Bolivia, increased funding to universities, and created the State Bank and the
Development Corporations with the aim of building up state companies.

The Popular Assembly was convened
during the Torres government, representing an important step forward in the
organisation of the working class. Beginning its deliberations on May 1, 1971,
the assembly was based on the COB, with representation of the different
political currents that made up the Political Command, including, at first, the
MNR. Although the MNR was later expelled, a large number of union
representatives present in the assembly were aligned with the MNR, meaning its
influence remained strong.

Torres attempted to extend the hand
of support to the assembly, but this was rejected on the basis of defending the
autonomy of the working class. Unfortunately the conception of “autonomy” held
by much of the left still under the influence of workerist and sectarian
attitudes, lead to a number of fatal mistakes in the assembly.

The assembly took an ambiguous
position towards Torres, preferring to simply criticise from the left, rather
that proposing a united front against imperialism.

For the assembly, the question of
working class leadership of the revolution was a question of numbers that could
be imposed in a mechanical rather than organic way. The majority of delegates
belonged to the working class (and, ironically, most of them were in turn
aligned with the MNR). In a country where campesinos were the majority, the
assembly statutes declared that it was to be comprised of 132 workers’ union
delegates, 52 delegates from middle class organisations, 13 from political
parties and only 23 from campesino organisations.

Moreover, while the small BIC was
allowed to participate, the assembly rejected the participation of a new emerging
campesino movement represented in the figure of Genaro Flores, who had been elected secretary general of the Campesino
Federation of La Paz Tupac Katari in 1970. Flores went on to win control
of the National Confederation of Campesino Workers of Bolivia (CNTCB) in early
August, 1971.

The rise in support for Flores
within the pro- MCP campesino confederation not only represented a radical
change in the leadership, but also signified the re-emergence of a movement
that self-identified as indigenous and not simply campesino. Yet, the participation of this new current was
rejected because it was viewed as too close to the regime due to its continued affiliation
to the pro- MCP union confederation

Although General Hugo Banzer, who
had led the right wing coup attempt against Ovando, was removed from the military,
a number of his supporters were allowed to remain in the military, despite
having been identified. Torres refused to remove this reactionary wing when he
had the legal and social backing to so, and at the same time refused to arm the
population in the face an impeding coup, leaving the people in a dangerous
situation.

Banzer finally succeeded in
toppling the Torres regime on August 21, 1971, and installed a brutal right
wing dictatorship in its place. Banzer organised the coup together with the pro
Santa Cruz Civic Committee that had become a bastion for ultra right opposition
to the national revolution.

In return, the newly emerging Santa
Cruz based elites linked to agribusiness and gas interest were rewarded for
their role in the coup. Banzer’s policies of regressive land distribution, the
provision of loans which were never paid back, and money from royalties from
gas exploitation in the region that were not redistributed to other parts of
the country, laid the basis for rise of this new elite
to power during the period of neoliberal regimes.

“As
Indians they exploited us, as Indians we will liberate ourselves”:
The emergence of katarismo

Under the Banzer dictatorship, the Flores-led
Confederation Tupac Katari was forced underground. This current, which
identified itself as kataristas in
the tradition of Tupac Katari, continued to organise both in the countryside
and in urban areas where they promoted the development of cultural
associations.

The origins of this current traced
back to the early 1960s with the migration of a layer of Aymaras to La Paz in
search of university education and work. These sectors, who came face to face
with the racism of the cities, became instrumental in setting up networks of
cultural associations and producing discussion journals to promote indigenous
culture, history and ideology. This process of indigenous self-identification,
on the back of an increasingly non-indigenous discourse of the National
Revolution which promoted their assimilation as campesinos, emerged as a
response to the exclusion indigenous people faced in the cities.

This current began challenging the
concept of what it meant to be indigenous. Indigenous people did not want to be
assimilated as campesinos, rather they were actors in their own emancipation,
with their own historic project. “As Indians they exploited us, as Indians we
will liberate ourselves” was one of the catch cries of the movement.

Indigenous people began to study
their own true history, retrace their cultural roots, and speak their own
languages. Their rejection of the nationalist discourse of assimilation, and
distrust of the Marxism of the POR and miner unionism that viewed indigenous
people simply as campesinos subordinated to the working class, meant that this
current viewed itself in ideological opposition to these other currents.[37]

In the political sphere, this new
indigenism was first expressed through the Indian Party of Bolivia (PIB),
founded in 1968 by Fausto Reinaga. The Manifesto of the PIB explained that “confronted
with the nationalist front and the communist front, the Indian forms another
front. This is the third front: the Indian Front. The Indian faces off against
the “nationalists and communists white mestizo cholaje.”[38]

“The problem of the Indian is not
assimilation; it is liberation” argued Reinaga. “It is not a problem of class
(campesino class), it is a problem of race, of spirit, of culture, of people,
of nation”. What was necessary, according to the PIB, was Indian power: the revolutionary conquest of power by the indigenous
people in order to reconstitute the Aymara and Quechua empires.

In 1973, the kataristas once again
exploded onto the national scene releasing their most important manifesto and
that defined the politics of this current. The manifesto, proclaimed from
Tiawanaku, declared: “we are exploited as campesinos and oppressed as Indians”
and “we feel like foreigners in our own country”. It was made to circulate
through La Paz and the rest of the country, marking the definite arrival of a
new political force.

According to Silvia Rivera two
central elements marked the katarista discourse: the continuity of a colonial
oppression over the indigenous societies and the idea of the “awakening of a
sleeping giant”, the indigenous majority, which would use its numerical
advantage to confront criollo oppression.[39]

Formation of CSUTCB

By the end of the 1970s, many of
the military regimes in South America began to come under heavy scrutiny as US
pressure increased to begin a transition towards democracy (while maintaining local
elites in power).

An opening up of political space
allowed the Confederation Tupac Katari to re-emerge into public life in 1977.
The following year it called a congress separate from the CNTCB, and in 1979,
together with the BIC and other small groups, formed the United Union
Confederation of the Campesino Workers of Bolivia (CSUTCB). Genaro Flores was
elected the first secretary general of the new confederation.

Garcia Linera argues that the
formation of the CSUTCB marked “the symbolic rupture of the movement of
campesino unions with the nationalist state in general, and in particular, with
the Military Campesino Pact which had brought about military tutelage over
campesino organizations”.[40]

The CSUTCB was comprised of nine
departmental federations and other regional federations. During its first few
years, the CSUTCB also included the Amazonian indigenous communities organised
in the east. However, at the start of the 1980s, these groups left the CSUTCB and
form the Confederation of Indigenous people of the Bolivian East (CIDOB).

The CSUTCB almost immediately
affiliated to the COB, re-establishing the campesino-worker alliance of the
early fifties. However, Pablo Stefanoni writes that this time “ponchos and lluch’us
broke the monotony of the western suits of the COB.”[41]

At the same time, two organisations
emerged in the political sphere, raising the banners of katarismo: the Indian
Movement Tupac Katari (MITKA) and the Revolutionary Movement Tupac Katari
(MRTK). Whilst the MITKA had a much more indigenist policy, the MRTK held a
more flexible policy in regards to other left parties and currents. This
difference was reflected in their participation in the 1979 elections where the
MRTK supported and participated in the Popular and Democratic Unity (UDP),
which won 24% of the votes, whilst the MITKA won 0.71% of the votes standing
its own candidates.

Fall
of the UDP and the rise of neoliberalism

After having won three previous
elections between 1978-80, and being prevented from forming government each
time by successive military coups, the UDP finally came to power in 1983.
However, the UDP was swimming against the tide of history, representing the
final stage of the long degeneration of the 1952 National Revolution.

The UDP was an alliance between the
Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), the Nationalist Revolutionary Movement of
the Left (MNR-I) and the Communist Party of Bolivia.

Inheriting an indebted government,
an economic crisis and hyperinflation which reached 27,000%, the UDP government
also had to overcome obstructions from the right wing on a number of fronts.
Furthermore, the alliance was fragile and divided. The MIR soon left the
government, while the COB, whose strong political focus had come to be replaced
by a corporative outlook, organised hundreds of protest over simple economic
demands.

Under pressure, President Hernan
Siles Zuazo announced that he would call early election on August 6 1985.

While the UDP disintegrated, the
MNR candidate, Paz Estenssoro, won the elections: ironically, the first
president to emerge from the 1952 National Revolution, was also the first to
inaugurate the neoliberal era.

This destruction of the national
economy and the forced relocalisation[42]
of tens of thousands of miners, resulted in a massive internal migration, as
miners sought out a new livelihood. The city of El Alto was one destination for
waves of internal migrants; the other was the cocalero region of the Chapare.
Taking with them their brand of miner unionism, it was perhaps no surprise that
these two areas soon became epicentres of resistance to neoliberalism.

Decline of katarismo

By 1983, divisions within the
CSUTCB emerged between the Aymara kataristas, who argued to privilege an indigenous
discourse, and other currents, particularly the Grassroots Campesino Movement
(MCB), who proposed limiting themselves to purely union or economic demands.[43]
These differences were also played out between campesinos and workers within
the COB. One example that Lavaud points to was the discussion in 1984 around a
proposed literacy campaign: while the kataristas from the CSUTCB argued it
should be bilingual, the COB, particular the teachers’ federation, strenuously
defend a campaign strictly in Spanish.[44]

Analysing the situation they found
themselves in, delegates to the July 1998 CSUTCB extraordinary congress made
the following diagnoses: “The union is passing through a crisis, which if we do
not turn around, could convert itself into a crisis that kills the
confederation”.[45]
That same year the katarista faction led by Flores lost control of the CSUTCB
as the organisation became engulfed by internal conflicts between different
left parties and alliances.

At the same time, in the political
sphere, the kataristas underwent further divisions, with both organisations
fracturing. Moreover, the electoral results of the 1989 elections, where the
two candidates identified with katarismo gain a meagre combined vote of 2.8%, two-thirds of which came from the department
of La Paz, demonstrated that katarismo had been reduced to an almost
exclusively Aymara political expression without any force outside of La Paz.

By the end of the 1980s, the
indigenous and campesino movements was characterised by a CSUTCB divided over
support for a pluri-multi discourse
or indigenous self-determination, the consolidation of an indigenous movement
in the east around CIDOB, and the rise of the cocalero movement.

A new indigenous
nationalism

Over the following years, the
cocalero movement, together with campesino movement organized within the CSUTCB
and the indigenous movement around CIDOB, began to come together and form a
powerful indigenous campesino movement. This movement took a decision in 1995
to create a political instrument which ultimately led to the creation of the
MAS-IPSP.

To understand this new project for
national liberation, it is necessary to contextualise it within Bolivia’s long
and short memory. Today, the MAS-IPSP represents the continuation and at the
same time, superation of these two memories. It feeds off both the history of
anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles such as those of the kataristas,
combining indigenista, nationalist and miner marxism ideologies, within a new
indigenous nationalism.

This new project continues in the
tradition of military socialism, of the Villarroel government, of the National
Revolution and the Ovando and Torres regimes, but for the first time it is a
movement led by indigenous campesinos, not middle class or military sectors.

Unlike previous experiences, this
nationalism incorporates an ethno-cultural component that questions the idea of
a mestizo Bolivian nationality, and instead proposes a pluri-national Bolivia.

During the new cycle of struggle
that opened up in 2000 – which can be said to represent a new anti-neoliberal
short memory – the indigenous campesino movement transformed itself into a
political movement, with the MAS-IPSP becoming the largest political force in
the country, and today holds the destiny of Bolivia in its hands.

[7]Refers to the generations of white Spaniards that had
been born in Latin America, beginning to form a stable local population.

[8]Refers to those of mixed blood, Spanish and indigenous

[9]Bolivar led several of the 19th century
independence struggles throughout South America, including Venezuela where he
was born. He was the first president of the Gran Colombia in 1821, a federation
covering much of modern day Venezuela, Colombia, Peru and Ecuador.

[10]San Martin was an 18th-century Argentine general and
prime leader of the southern part of South America's struggle for independence
from Spain

[11]Artigas is referred to as the “father of Uruguayan
independence”

[12]O’Higgins was one of the commanders – together with
San Martin – of the military forces that freed Chile from Spanish rule in the
Chilean War of Independence

[21]Cited in Zunes, Stephen; “Bolivia, United States and
Dependency: The legacy of US dependency usurpation of the 1952 National
Revolution”, Americas Program discussion
paper, November 5 2007 http://americas.irc-online.org/am/4701#_edn3

[27]Soliz Rada in “La caracterizacion de Bolivia”explains: “Hernan
Siles Zuazo said, shortly after the April insurrection, that the Bolivian
revolution was ‘independent of Washington, Moscow and Buenos Aires’. This
demonstrated the petty-bourgeois leadership was also incapable of imbuing the
revolution with a Latin American sentiment, given that the position of
‘independence from Buenos Aires’ defended by Siles Zuazo meant isolating the
MNR process from the process being led by Peron at that time in Argentina.” Op. cit

[28]Named after George Jackson Eder who the United States
had appointed to take charge of an drafting an economic stabilization program